Monday, June 23, 2008

At it again

Dr Peter Gauweiler, the CSU MP for Munich South is one of those people who the powers that be just wish would go away. He is in effect the Eurosceptic (centre right) movement of Germany in one person. It is because of him that the Germans never ratified the Constitution - a fact often forgotten by the elite. It was his efforts that caused the Germans to have a somewhat different approach to Maastricht, and now it appears he is going to try and do the same for the Lisbon Treaty.

Sadly I hadn't spotted this earlier but back in May he filed a complaint about the Treaty with the Federal Constitutional Court.

Prof. Dr. iur. K.A. Schachtschneider, long-standing professor for public law at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, has this afternoon on request of Dr. Gauweiler MP – immediately following the vote in the Bundesrat, the upper/state house of the German parliament – filed for constitutional court support opposing the legislation approving the Lisbon Treaty and the accompanying German legislation. The complaint is accompanied by an expertise report from Prof. Dr. Dietrich Murswiek, prof. für public constitutional law, administration law and international law at the Institute für Public Law of the university of Freiburg. The complaint reprimands the prejudicing of fundamental constitutional principles.

1. The Treaty of Lisbon repeats widely the Treaty on a Constitution for Europe dated 2004. Processing by the Federal Constitutional Court of Dr. Gauweiler’s constitutional complaint against the the Constitutional Treaty of 2005 – which had the effect of preventing the Federal President from signing the approval legislation of that time and from completing ratification of the Treaty – was not completed since conclusion of the new Treaty had been brought into focus. The new complaint filed, attacks the Treaty of Lisbon widely with the same criticism which was brought against the Constitutional Treaty.

2. Dr. Gauweiler is bringing this action against parliament and filing the constitutional complaint because the Lisbon Treaty violates the basic constitutional rights of every citizen to substantial representation by the German parliament and because Germany’s sovereign rights are being transfered to the European Union to an inestimable extent. This no longer satisfies the democratically inalienable principle of restricted individual empowerment of a confederation of states.

3. In addition to this action against parliament and to the constitutional complaint, an application for a court injunction is being made to prevent completion of preparation and promulgation of the approval legislation and of its accompanying legislation and also to prevent ratification of the Treaty prior to the Federal Constitutional Court examining and deciding whether or not to grant admission of the constitutional complaint.

4. The major criticism of the Lisbon Treaty is as follows:a) This matter concerns the fact that the Treaty constitutes de facto a federal state although the European Union has no „union population“ with original sovereignty. An integration step of the type the Treaty makes demands referenda in the european nations as prerequisite. These however do not exist.b) The responsibilities, tasks and authority of the EU are (already) excessively extensive, especially since they are extensively administrated by the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the union. EU policy is becoming less and less preprocessed and less and less the responsibility of the national parliaments although the German Federal Constitutional Court expressly demanded this for the sake of legitimation in its Maastricht verdict of 1993.c) Through the Lisbon Treaty, the member states widely forfeit economic sovereignty. The EU is increasingly taking over justice and police policy i.e. responsibility for the internal security of the member states. Furthermore, responsibility for external security and corresponding military missions is being enlarged.d) The Court of Justice of the European Union is becoming more and more the highest court, although it is not democratically legitimized for this power of jurisdiction. It acts as a driving force for integration.e) The fiscal policy-related general clause of Art. 311 Para. 3 TFEU enables the union to raise European taxes or to introduce further categories for ist own resources, without requiring the agreement of the national parliaments for this.f) In the simplified change procedure of Art. 48 Para. 6 of the TEU, the European Council is empowered to partially or fully change the core of the constitution, i.e. all regulations of the third section of the Treaty embracing the functioning of the European Union, of the internal market, the economic and currency union, the scope of freedom, security and law and many other areas of policy, without the need to obtain the agreement of the German parliament (Bundestag) and of the Upper German House (Bundesrat) or even of the various peoples. There is also only the need of a hearing for the European Parliament and the Commission.g) The flexibility clause of article 352 of the TFEU also empowers the union to give itself new items of authority when this appears to be required to implement the boundlessly broad aims of the union.h) The Treaty reinforces the democratic deficit of EU politics especially since the „European Parliament“ is not elected in accordance with the principle of equality of all votes.